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What the Dandelions Gave Us

As we were plucking dandelions out of the yard the other day, I noticed my hands were beginning to turn yellow. I remembered that dandelions can be used to make a natural dye and since we had SO MANY, I thought we should put them to good use. You know, the "making lemonade out of lemons" idea ;)

So, we separated the heads from the stems...

and put them in a large pot.

Since this was an impromptu craft, I wanted some simple directions and found them here. I liked how they just added the mordant (alum) directly to the dye (step 5 in the instructions) instead of getting out another pot and doing it separately as I had read in other directions. The mordant is the ingredient that sets the dye and an easy one to use is alum. It can be found in the spice section of the grocery store.

Little Brother is stirring his white T-shirt in the dye...

The finished T, dyed a light dandelion yellow!

We thought we'd take it one step further and add a freezer paper dandelion stencil to the front.

Little Brother has very limited vision and had to get up close to make his drawing. There are lots of good freezer paper stencil tutorials, here's a link to get you started. He's drawing directly on the freezer paper.

I helped by cutting out the drawing to make the stencil...

Then, I placed it on the T-shirt and ironed it on, shiny-side down...

Now, it's time to add the paint. Put a piece of cardboard between the front and back of the shirt so the paint doesn't bleed through to the back side. Little Brother started dabbing on the fabric paint and then I helped to make it complete.

Pull off the freezer paper, let the paint dry (follow directions on your fabric paint bottle for drying) and you have one happy customer!

I would love to post a link to this article on my blog. Would you mind emailing me about permission to do so? (I would especially like to use an accompanying photo from your post with the link if you wouldn't mind)

The shirt came out great. I love the idea of using something 'free' from nature to enhance our lives. Have you thought about dandelion tea or eating the leaves too? I've only heard about those things- haven't had quite the courage to give it a try.